Inside Look: John Ramirez
Posted: 4/28/2008

   John Ramirez is a man on the move. With catering businesses in Detroit, Arizona and Washington, D.C., and plans to open a deli in the Detroit-Metro area, Ramirez is one Detroit businessman to keep an eye on, and not just because he’ll be catering the Detroit Fashion Pages’ Fusion event on May 8. 

   A Detroit native, Ramirez has experience in hospitality, cooking and sales. He began his career working for a family-owned bakery and deli in Greektown and then entered the world of hospitality, eventually becoming the Marriott’s youngest corporate buyer. With no desire to become stagnant, Ramirez then had an opportunity to work with Holiday Inn. “I created the purchasing department for a 400-room hotel. It was the best and the worst job of my life because I was young at the time, coming with all this new experience, but I had to manage a staff of 25 superiors twice my age. But it was a great opportunity because it gave me the opportunity to create something,” Ramirez said.
   Angels Catering and Deli is product of all this experience. Named for Ramirez’s mother, the business offers services for a variety of events, from weddings to corporate functions. “The name Angel was my mother’s name. She passed away when I was younger, when I was 17. My mom was everybody’s mom; she was that type of person. She always gave. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to create a company because of that, it was more or less because that’s how I am in some ways.” 

   The combination of a love of food and the desire to create pushed Ramirez to open his business. Although starting a business can be stress-inducing, Ramirez had his sisters’ support to help make the transition easier. “When I started with nothing, I sat down with my sisters and I said, hey, I want to create a company and this is what I want to do. My first event was having three of my sisters cooking in the kitchen and buying this and doing that, so, when it all came together it was like, wow! We did this!”

   Ramirez’s love of travel helped inspire him to expand his business, but also introduced him to a wide variety of cuisine. One look at Angels Catering’s menu and it’s easy to see the wide variety of influences. “I love playing with food and different creations. Lebanese and Turkish and Spanish and American and soul food. I’ve trained with some really good chefs, but I’ve also trained with the lady down the street who is up at three o’clock in the morning baking a cobbler,” Ramirez says.
   For Fusion, Ramirez has a vision of elegance and comfort, “I want to make it as elegant but as comfortable as possible. I’m doing a chocolate fondue station with strawberries, pineapple and homemade sponge cakes. I’m doing some hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, very comfortable food. The way I’m looking at the event, it’s somewhere where everybody just wants to mingle, to get away from everything right now. That’s the kind of food I’m going to bring so people can just forget about their troubles.”

- Evelyn Miska
Evelyn@detroitfashionpages.com

- Melissa Herndon
Photographer
Melissa@detroitfashionpages.com

 For More Information, contact:

John Ramirez of Angels Catering

( 586 ) 879-0278

( 586 ) 219-0990

http://www.freewebs.com/johnr48089/

 

 

 

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